TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/081291/0812002.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 7.9 KB | 166 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 41

CUBA

Dancing the Socialist Line


The young in Havana may covet jeans and rap records from the U.S.,
but most of them say they still respect Castro and reject
materialism

By CATHY BOOTH/HAVANA


    It is 2 a.m. Sunday in the Havana Club, but Juan Antonio
isn't dancing. Madonna's disco beat befuddles his salsa-savvy
feet. It's just as well. A young woman in a white micro-mini has
claimed his attention -- when he's not distracted by a cold,
imported Heineken and the $1.2 million club layout with its wall
of cascading water. Juan Antonio, 19, has gone to heaven in
Fidel Castro's Cuba. He may never be unhappy again.

    He may also never be inside the Havana Club again: tickets
can be bought only with dollars, and by law he is allowed to
hold no more than $5 in U.S. currency, half the price of
admission. A visiting tourist pays Juan Antonio's way, but he
is worried his friends will label him a jinetero, or gigolo. He
is also worried that the police will arrest him for consorting
with foreigners, so he asks that his real name not be used. His
paranoia is so pervasive that he finds it hard to believe he can
wander the club floor without being stopped.

    Cuba is a nation of young people. Nearly 60% of the
island's 10.7 million people were born after Castro came to
power in 1959. They have known only socialism. They are the
healthiest and best-educated younger class in Latin America, but
they are greedy for more. They yearn for capitalist fare like
jeans and jogging shoes, rap records and videocassettes. They
have had their fill of rhetoric and bureaucracy, of long lines
for buses and hamburguesas, the Cuban version of an American
favorite, made with pork. The most visible rebels, known as los
freekiss (freakies), hang out in the park around Coppelia
ice-cream parlor, flaunting long hair and T shirts splashed with
the logos of heavy-metal bands. But even government-approved
bands like Carlos Varela sing openly of Cuba's woes. "The
inequities in society frustrate the young. I couldn't make a
popular song about how great things are here now," admits
American-born Cuban rock singer Pablo Menendez, a Castro
supporter. "The young have created pressure for change."

    The dissatisfaction is particularly acute today. Last
August, Cuba tightened its rationing measures because of Soviet
aid cutbacks and the long-standing U.S. embargo. Every Cuban is
entitled to only two rolls a day and less than a pound of meat
every nine days. Particularly painful to the fashion-conscious
young is rationing that limits them to just one new dress, a
pair of pants and a pair of dress shoes a year. Grandmothers
hand over their yearly ration of textile coupons to the young;
mothers sell their gold jewelry for consumer goods like TVs and
radios. "Those under 30 are bored with the story of the
revolution and are cynical about the government," says a
European diplomat. "They want jobs, dollars and consumer goods."

    The Pan American Games, which began in Havana last week,
have instilled a renewed sense of pride, but the headlong rush
to develop tourist hotels that are barred to most Cubans has
caused resentment. "We were born into socialism, but sometimes
we feel we have nothing. We can't eat where tourists eat. We
can't drink where tourists drink," says an angry 26-year-old at
Havana's La Playita beach. "What would Marx and Engels say to
that?"

    Fed up with the economic hardships and the restrictions on
personal liberties, hundreds of young have set out for Florida
in flimsy rubber tubes or rafts. More than 1,000 Cubans, the
majority of them under 30, have survived the dangerous crossing
this year. "Take me with you in your suitcase," pleads a high
school student, only half in jest. After months of leniency,
malcontents are again being hauled off to jails or rounded up
for warnings. Local block groups, with 4 million members, have
formed "rapid-reaction brigades" to nip any protests in the bud.

    But Castro has not stayed in power for 32 years simply by
using bloody repression. Since early 1990 he has encouraged
criticism from "within the revolution," and he has promised to
debate change at the upcoming October party congress, although
a multiparty system and a market economy are banned from
discussion. The Union of Young Communists, with half a million
members, has laid on entertainment for the young, giving pop
concerts on the Ma lecon seaside drive. Twenty-four new
government discos are promised around Havana.

    The Castillito complex along the Male con, for instance,
boasts two restaurants, a video room with Sony TVs, a
roller-skating rink, a disco with an Italian-designed light
system and a pool with cavorting men and women. The entry fee
to the government-operated club is only 1 peso (6 cents), a
steal compared with the admission price at the Havana Club.
Around Havana the youthful influence has spiced up revolutionary
slogans, which are now splashed in neon colors on the walls.
Sumate! (Get involved!) says one.

    Yet university teachers say it is increasingly hard to get
students to believe socialism will ever provide them with the
standard of living they want. "They complain about a lack of
stylish clothes," says Blanca Munster Infante, 30, a professor
of Marxism at one of Havana's advanced polytechnic institutes.
"They don't reject socialism, but they are pessimistic about
making it work. They are disillusioned."

    It would be wrong, however, to assume this discontent will
translate into the demise of Castro and Cuba's brand of tropical
socialism. While some 175 million live in poverty in Latin
America, there are no beggars on the streets of Havana. The
infant mortality rate is 10.7 per 1,000 births, in contrast to
60 before the revolution. "We see socialism is difficult to
achieve, but capitalism isn't the answer either," says Sierra
Wald, 17. "Nobody wants Fidel to step down. People worry about
what might happen without him." Young Cubans increasingly see
themselves as the last idealists in a world that cares only
about money. "Our society may be inefficient, but it is humane
and just," says Dennys Gonzalez. Says a 25-year-old teacher:
"Everybody's really worried about the future, but my students
don't talk about politics. They want something fresh, but they
don't want to change the whole system. They just want to enjoy
life."

    Take the example of Paradise, a farm that lies at the end
of a dusty red road on the fertile plain south of Havana. A
white bust of Lenin marks the entrance. By day Paradise is where
Cuba's young dirty their hands with the real work of the
socialist revolution, weeding, hoeing and harvesting in fields
planted with banana trees. But by night it seems more of a '60s
hippie commune, with parties in the "club," El Mosquito Picante
(The Spicy Mosquito) and stolen kisses in the thatched hut out
back.

    Ninety miles away in Miami, Cuban emigres wish for Fidel's
imminent collapse, but the island's university students who
volunteer to take a two-week "vacation" in the fields don't see
trouble brewing in Paradise. Marlen Fuentes, 21, her pants caked
with red mud after a nine-hour day, is typical of the young
Cubans who come. "We need a change," she says, "but from inside
our system. We need to talk about our mistakes and find
solutions inside socialism." These aren't assembly-line
thinkers; they genuinely care about the gains of the revolution.
"I don't have a car or a lot of jeans, but for me Cuba is more
important," says Randy Alonso Falcon, 21, a student leader at
the University of Havana.

    As the sun set over Paradise, the students gathered for a
ceremony that ended with Castro's latest call to arms:
Socialismo o Muerte! -- socialism or death. There was a barely
audible laugh at the choice, but the answer came back:
"Socialismo!"